


eat the brittle bone at night

by quixxotique (crownlessliestheking)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: :/, And Lovecraft, Angst...?, Corpses, Gore, Horror, I've been informed that I should tag this as vore, It's more metaphorical vore than anything else, Probably inspired by The Shining, Psychological Horror, Supernatural forces beyond normal human powers, a little bit of it, along with some rather suggestive paragraphs, really - Freeform, which may be purple prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 20:27:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12540512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessliestheking/pseuds/quixxotique
Summary: Dave’s already promised to paint it his favorite shade of garish red, though Dirk himself has laid claim for the roof to be orange, rather than the dark shingles that slice the sky apiece like the sundered wings of a giant crow. The yard consists of the typical suburban lawn, all lush green and artificial wealth, offendingly verdant, and the single gnarled carcass of a tree. Cherry, Dave’d told him, kiss kiss buy a house, though Dirk doubts that it’s flowered in years.Windows stare out at them, glassy unseeing eyes veiled with curtains that shift and flutter every so often; there’s one open just a crack, the draft stirring the rest.(Or, the one where Dave buys a haunted house.)





	eat the brittle bone at night

**Author's Note:**

> This is unbeta'd, so, sorry for any mistakes. Whoops.  
> Also, thanks @quenive for chatting the idea out with me way back when.  
> Happy Halloween, everyone.

And all the while the burning lime  
Eats flesh and bone away,  
It eats the brittle bone by night, and the soft flesh by the day,  
It eats the flesh and bones by turns,  
But it eats the heart alway.  
For three long years they will not sow  
Or root or seedling there:  
For three long years the unblessed spot  
Will sterile be and bare,  
And look upon the wondering sky  
With unreproachful stare.  
-The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde  
-  
Haunt: 1. To visit a person or place in the form of a ghost  
           2. To intrude upon or recur to  
           3. A place someone visits frequently  
           4. A feeding place for animals  
-

**1**

“So, here we are, kiddo, mi casa y tu casa, the new Chateau Strider. A hot bachelor pad for two of the most eligible bachelors to grace this sweet fuckin’ earth,” Dave announces, his arms spread wide against the sky. Dirk looks at his brother, blonde and with a wry twist of his mouth that’s nearly a grin, suit practically painted on and shades reflecting the wan circle of the sun through the clouds like a pale white eye painted on each.

The house is clearly in good condition, recently painted a dull pastel green and apparently remarkably cheap for this area, practically a fuckin’ steal, bro- and Dirk has never been one to argue with practicality. They’re rich, of course, but frugality never hurt, even if it’s been ingrained in them both, a habit neither can break, that callous calculation of cost and weighing of benefits. Dave’s already promised to paint it his favorite shade of garish red, though Dirk himself has laid claim for the roof to be orange, rather than the dark shingles that slice the sky apiece like the sundered wings of a giant crow. The yard consists of the typical suburban lawn, all lush green and artificial wealth, offendingly verdant, and the single gnarled carcass of a tree. Cherry, Dave’d told him, kiss kiss buy a house, though Dirk doubts that it’s flowered in years.

Windows stare out at them, glassy unseeing eyes veiled with curtains that shift and flutter every so often; there’s one open just a crack, the draft stirring the rest. Everything’s been shipped off already, clothes and projects and a huge flatscreen they’d bought together online, gaming consoles delivered in crisp boxes that he’s sure already sit in the living room. Dirk scuffs his shoes against the smooth stones of the walkway, dark and fitted together almost seamlessly, as Dave strides forwards to open the door with a flourish, suitcase abandoned on the lawn.

“Are you coming in or not, kid? Don’t make me come over there, I’ll carry you over the threshold if I need to,” Dave calls out, and there’s an actual grin on his face now, the kind that’d make his eyes crinkle unattractively if his shades were off. Dirk just rolls his eyes, safe behind his own pointed shades, and gets all of four feet closer before his brother is making good on his word, the complete fucking dork, scooping Dirk up and cradling him close like every blushing bride, sans white dress and train and quite probably grains of rice in his cleavage from the shower. He leans his head against Dave’s chest, and sure that his brother can’t see, lets a smile steal across his face.

\---

They’ve split up, Dirk on his meticulous crusade of unpacking, labelled box by box, though he only has three to his name, and he’s left those for last because it’s apparently crucial to unpack the Household Things first (this is not logic that Dave could argue with); and Dave rummaging through ones at random, ironically excited to participate in his version of the American dream, all they need is a generic soccer mom spouse and another 1.5 kids, though he supposes that the robots Dirk had begun crafting, even in their rented apartment, would fulfil that quota.

The silence creeps up on him easily, a blanket settling over his shoulders with an unnerving familiarity, draped there by a tender hand. But Dave hates it, it’s too much the sound of an apartment that was never truly empty, his face reflected back at him, small and drawn, in dark glass. Dave shakes his head to dispel those thoughts; he’s done a good job of ignoring that shred of his past over the years- strange, really, that he should think of it now.

His breathing is the only sound in the room, the shuffling, soft rasp of skin and cardboard seems strangely muted, his heartbeat magnified until it’s outside him, that wet, even thudding that fills the room to its brim until there’s no space for anything else.

He takes a deep breath and opens a window, but the air is stale and still. But there wasn’t much of a breeze to begin with, he remembers, and sighs. The house has AC, thank fuck, he wouldn’t have bought it otherwise, but Dave still resolves to get some fans. Maybe two or three, one for each of their rooms, and another for the living room.

Dave notices the noise soon after, something hovering just on the edge of his consciousness and barely audible. It’s an easy thing to overlook, really, just the echoing metallic scrape like sword against sword in the blazing heat of the sun, a man like a cruel god bearing down on him hungry for blood that could be anything, really. He doesn’t think that there’s construction going on anywhere on this street, but it could be the next, any one of these meandering, wide roads framed with towering trees caped in autumn reds and oranges and lawns that stay green no matter the season. Sounds like that tend to echo and carry, borne on the waves of city noise and a night sky that’s never dark. Although apparently, the suburbs have their fair share of it.

He doesn’t quite manage to ignore it, always naggingly aware of its presence, but he breaks out ye olde Bluetooth speakers, one of the pocket-sized ones Dirk had bastardized and fiddled with. Not that Dave complains, given that it works better for the modifications. But the comforting melodies of shitty bluegrass are soon filling the room, and if he can still hear it in the lull between songs, in the odd clashes with banjos and bearded men singing about wheat, it isn’t unbearable. Hell, when Dave starts to sing along, it just about disappears.

-

“Bro,” Dirk says, and Dave turns instantly, plastering his usual bland expression right back across his face.

“‘Sup, kid?” he asks, perfectly casual, nonchalant like Hollywood’s darling always is. “You need something, want me to tuck you in, too?”

“No,” Dirk replies, and he can practically hear the kid rolling his eyes, holy shit, “But we need to eat and I don’t think you’re capable of cooking, and I don’t feel like it, even if we had anything remotely in the way of groceries, so are we getting takeout or going out? Either one’s going to make your agent shit himself, so pick your poison.”

“Shit, dude, then we’ve got to hit up the golden arches,” he answers immediately, though he gives a solemn, slow nod, like this is a matter of national goddamn security. All for the game, of course, and the slight twitch of Dirk’s lips is a reward in itself. “I’m ready to clog these fine arteries with whatever swill that corporate shithouse is ready to serve us, dude, aren’t you? Ram those greasy, subpar fries down my throat post-haste.”

“You only say they’re subpar because you’re biased towards Burger King,” Dirk, quite reasonably, points out. Dave gives his brother his best guileless look, all faux innocence and coy perfection.

“I say that because Burger King gives impeccably crisp fatty goodness, hot and perfectly salted at all times, like some kind of fry wizardry, dude. No soggy bullshit over there, bromide, just crunchy goodness. They could sell fries alone and make a fortune, I would buy out the entire fucking chain if I could get the CEO to sell to me. Make Jeff nuggets and Bro slamwiches,” Dave muses, but he’s already grabbing his car keys, Jag already in the driveway and gleaming dangerously red with its shitty jpeg decals, all hand painted on, of course. He looks back once as they drive away, but the fresh air and greasy food are an easy distraction.

\--  
**2**

They start what Dirk has termed the Painting Project. Fresh cans of the stuff gleam in the morning sunlight; Dave has evidently been productive in his purchases this morning. Along them are rollers and regular brushes, and trays. Dirk knows that without a doubt, this is going to be the fucking ugliest house on the street, but it’ll be theirs. Entirely and irrevocably. It’s one step closer to making it a home, after all.

He yawns, tugs at the hem of his old tank top, frayed and worn thin and stained already with fair worse than paint. He’s also donned an old pair of jeans, with holes naturally worn in at the knees and inner thighs- not exactly a pair of pants he can wear anywhere else. Dave’s already outside, setting up a ladder in front of the house, though Dirk supposes that it would be far easier for him to paint the roof simply by scrambling up and out of the attic window, which is deep set into the slope of the shingles, peering out like a half-lidded eye.

But he gathers up his supplies, ties a bandana over his hair (both for ironic purposes, and to keep the paint out of it, since that’ll be a bitch to get off), and scales the ladder with Dave holding it steady for him. The roof is precisely as old as it looks, and disconcertingly different from the ones he’s used to perching on top of; Houston asphalt steaming hot and cracked and the smog of the city rising in a haze around them; Los Angeles a smooth concrete surface with sections cut through so that the penthouse could have a skylight. There were birds on both, he recalls, crows and seagulls of varying proportions that he’d sometimes feed. Dave would spend time up there, too, rapping silently at the birds that were meant to be omens of death- a lucky thing, isn’t it, that neither of them are superstitious?

This roof is steep, dangerously inclined, and for a single, horrifying second, he feels the world tilt around him, like he’s falling. He would have lost his balance, if it wasn’t for Dave’s voice beneath him, asking if he was alright. He takes care to keep his own even, when he replies that he’s fine. He doesn’t mention the other feeling, the sensation that one wrong step will send him plummeting down- that’s just vertigo, after all, even if it’s not something that he’s ever experienced before.

(He certainly doesn’t notice that shingles on the other side of the roof shift and loosen before settling flat again, evoking a bird ruffling its feathers).

He keeps his steps light and sure and reminds himself that he most certainly is not going to fall. Thinking about falling is the surest way to land on the ground like a marionette without strings. He makes his way over to the most secure part- or what he thinks is it- the corner formed just near the attic window, and wedges his can of garish-bright paint into the section. Careful, he tells himself, as he eases it open, revealing a-

“Dave?” he calls down, frowning a little.

“What?” comes the answer, louder than necessary. “You find a nest or something?”

“The paint’s bad,” he shouts back, but he’s frowning at the sheer impossibility of the statement. What should be a glossy surface is instead congealed and gritty, spelling ruination for any brush that went near it and any surface that it so much as touched. He’s sure that more than half of the can is solidified entirely. When he shakes the can, it wobbles precariously, gelatinous.

“It can’t be bad, I bought this shit this morning,” Dave calls out. It’s not even five minutes later that Dirk sees his head pop up above gutter, giving him the curious appearance of being only a talking head for a moment. The effect is strangely unnerving.  
“Well, it is,” Dirk says, and tilts the can for good measure. The paint within slides slightly, but doesn’t so much as threaten to ooze out. The pieces of grit and curved, congealed paint looks disturbingly like maggots, and Dirk half-expects them to start squirming in the can. He seals it up before he can start seeing anything of the sort- though that is, of course, entirely ridiculous.

“Huh,” Dave replies, and Dirk can tell that he’s blinking behind his shades, confused. “I’ll pass you up another can, this one good. I’m sure your ugly-ass clown paint was fine when I bought it. Maybe this is the universe’s way of telling you that you have shit taste. It’s trying to spare our eyes, bro.”

“If the universe was trying to spare our eyes, it’d destroy the entirety of your wardrobe and erase all your movies from living memory,” he retorts, and resists the urge to cross his arms. His palms are resting flat against the roof (which isn’t moving, of course it’s not moving), for extra purchase. It isn’t something he wants to lose; he can still seefeel himself falling, tilting sideways and then over again, hear the sickening crunch of bones breaking and feel the lancing pain slash through his neck.

Dirk shudders, as Dave’s head disappears, and the clanging of his footsteps on the ladder replace it. He doesn’t move from his spot, instead dipping a finger into the paint and disturbing the film over the top. It doesn’t even feel like paint, anymore. He wipes it off on his pants, the smear a bright but uneven slash over the fabric of his jeans. Some still clings to his skin, and he absently rubs it off against the shingles, though this time there’s not even the faintest trace of orange there.

“Dave?” he calls out, curious because it’s been quiet for far too long for his comfort. Especially with his brother around.

“Yeah, sorry. I’m just, opening the paint,” Dave answers after a moment, and Dirk feels a slight tension ease off his shoulders.

“Do you even know how to? Is that the problem here?” he asks, craning his neck and leaning slightly, as if that will give him a view of his brother. All it does is reveal another few inches of straggly grass, and worsen his vertigo. He straightens up almost immediately after.

“Fuck you, of course I know how to open these bullshit cans. Just that I left the opener in the kitchen,” Dave huffs out, and Dirk genuinely hopes that his brother is joking. You’d think that he had to be, but it’s often difficult to tell. And, well, seriousness has never truly been an indicator of whether or not something will happen; Dave’s just as likely to do it for what he calls ‘the irony’, as he is for a real reason. Dirk privately believes that his brother has absolutely no idea what irony truly means, though he himself applies quite a lot of the ‘ironic lessons’ taught to his life. Which he’ll maintain is an irony in itself, since he knows they’re almost entirely useless.

(The truth is that it’s born out of habit that was born out of admiration for his brother, and Dirk has no intentions of changing it at all. It’s the same reason why he’s kept the same style of pointed shades- that only has something to do with Kamina, and a lot to do with his first pair originally being Dave’s.)

There’s silence, for a while, just Dirk on the roof with the muted sounds of suburbia falling artificially around him. He tenses up at every slight breeze, though, convinced that the shingles will slip, that he really will fall this time, despite currently clutching on to the windowsill behind him. When Dave rattles back into the yard, his mouth still running (was Dirk supposed to hear any of what he said while he was inside? He hopes he’s not expected to formulate a response to it, but he suspects that he won’t have to) on about an entirely different topic.

“The paint, bro,” Dirk calls down, not in the least apologetic about that interruption. He does want his answer.

“Oh, yeah. I managed to get one open, and it looks just about fine to me, man. Not too sure what went on with yours, but it’s evidently just a one-off thing, so. How am I meant to get this up to you? I can just chuck it up there and hope I don’t brain you.”

“That’ll get paint everywhere, including on you, the front door which I’m sure you’ve still left open, the car. Not to mention that your noodle arms probably can’t throw the paint that high to begin with.”

“What the fuck, man, what kind of slander is this? My arms are perfectly in shape. I am the Sexiest Man Alive, two years running, don’t forget.”

“Yeah, and Russia hacked the election, so who knows, dude? You probably paid Roxy to hack Vogue or Cosmo or whoever and insert you into the lead.”

“This is literally the worst affront to my pride that I’ve ever faced. Slander, betrayal, lies, and from my own flesh and blood?”

“You’re such a drama queen.”

“I’m the drama empress, thank you very much.”

Dirk rolls his eyes this time, but when Dave re-ascends the ladder, infuriatingly sure-footed, and sets the now-open and perfectly good can of paint on the roof next to him, he takes it without a word and passes over the first one.

“Y’know,” Dave says, frowning vaguely down at the lumpy surface. “It looks perfectly fine to me.”

“What?” he leans forward precariously to peer into it- had it just been a trick of the light? No, it’s still congealed, except it looks like there’s things moving beneath the surface, squirming like maggots. He blinks, and it’s still again.

Dave sticks his finger in, swirls it around.

“Feels fine, too,” he says, staring straight at a glob of paint stuck to his finger. Dirk stares right back, disbelieving.

“Look closer, jackass,” is what he answers, and jabs his own finger into the paint. He withdraws it as quickly as possible, and shoves it right in Dave’s face, dangerously close to those coveted shades.

“Oh. That’d do it, yeah,” Dave answers after a beat, in which Dirk swears he can see his brother squinting at his finger through the glasses. He’s uncertain as to whether or not the guy’s actually seeing the same thing that he is, or if Dave’s just humouring him. He may be leaning to the latter, but this can is fresh and smooth, and he supposes it’s fine.

“Right. Well, I’ll come back down when I need another one,” Dirk says, shifting a little. He dips his brush into the new can, swirls it.

“Yeah, that’s what all the girls say,” Dave replies with an absolutely ridiculous wink, and Dirk doesn’t bother to hold back his snort.

“Yeah? And what are they coming back for, man? Five hours of listening to you ramble about whether that pixel in this frame should be here, or a half a centimetre to the left?” he raises an eyebrow, that moment of doubt easily forgotten. It’s vanished, like the shadow of a cloud borne by the wind.

“Fuck you. You couldn’t get a girl if you tried,” Dave says, like it’s in any way an adroit rejoinder. Dirk doesn’t even grace it with an answer, just gives his brother an expectant look.

“…Yeah. You might have won this round, but that doesn’t mean you’ve won the war, kiddo,” he continues on, wincing slightly at his own slip. “I’ll be back for my revenge, just you wait. I’ll fuckin’ Phantom of the Opera your ass for this one, dude, I’ll haunt you.”

“That’s only a small part of what Phantom’s about,” Dirk points out, and only earns the solitary salute of a finger for his efforts as Dave grabs the can and heads back down the ladder. A strategic retreat really was the best solution, in that case.

Dirk finds himself smiling, as he presses the brush to the roof for the first time, and begins his own task. It’s a long one, after all, and only broken by a single break for lunch and an ambush set by his brother when Dirk comes back out from a bathroom break as the shadows start to lengthen and herald in the afternoon.

Dave gets paint all over himself, all over them both, in the course of their fight. Slashes of red adorn his front, gleaming wetly and making his clothes stick to him. There’s orange streaks of it in his hair, and Dirk reaches over, smears a line along each of his cheeks to complete the effect. If only they had white, for greasepaint.

“Dude, you gotta take a picture of this shit for my Insta. Dave Strider, wholesome paintman extraordinaire,” Dave says, smacking your hand away from his mouth. You’re pretty sure he just got paint (which may or may not be toxic, though you’re leaning towards the former) in his mouth, judging from the disgusted face he makes. And the exaggerated spitting. Classy, Dirk wants to say, what would the neighbors think?

But it’s a tease that would ring hollow. Neither of them have seen the neighbors, beyond faint shapes getting into their cars and driving off, or coming back. Dirk is mostly certain that it’s because neither of their schedules align with what would be considered a ‘normal’ 9 to 5 day.

He shakes those thoughts off when Dave holds out his phone expectantly, and wipes his hands off on his jeans so as not to stain it with paint. He is painfully aware of the bitching that would come with any sort of harm to the precious phone, regardless of Dirk’s ability to not only reconstruct it, but build a better one. It’s a shame Dave’s never taken him up on that offer, but he’s got the e-Shades to work on. And that’s a deal his brother can’t possibly say no to.

“Yeah, alright. You gonna pose? I know I’m going to end up taking fifty of these for you to cull the worst of and then filter the ever-loving fuck out of the rest, before posting none of them and instead doing an arsty picture of a comic in progress.” Dirk enters the password (1203, their birthday), and pulls up the camera. By then, Dave has arranged himself into a parody of a farmer, pretending to studiously rake at the dry grass with his roller brush. And then he moves, lifts it up so he can imitate the sultry lean (or Dave’s version of it) before a kiss. Dave, cross-eyed with his face just above the paint-matted fluff of the roller. Dave, straddling it as if it were a broomstick. Dave, using it as a baseball bat, as a stripper pole, as a golf club, and Dirk’s laugher interspersing the shots that grow unsteadier.

Later, when they look back on the pictures after having taken a break for today, Dirk will feel a chill go down his spine, at how much that paint looks like blood.

\--

The second night in the house goes much like the first for Dave. There’s dinner with Dirk and watching a movie on his monster of a laptop- seriously, that thing is enormous, and half of it is customized. Dave has suggested multiple times that it could and would fight and bully other laptops if it got the chance, and Dirk made no comment other than to say that the weak-ass Surface Pro tablets better watch out before they got chewed to bits.

Dave generously let his brother choose today’s feature film, and he will admit that he’s regretting it, given that Dirk has, with great relish, elected to watch some hideous live-action My Little Pony movie. Dave has literally never heard of this thing before, has never seen it advertised or even sold anywhere, and their copy is a shitty bootleg of the thing, clearly filmed from the back row of seats in the cinema in the days where phone camera quality was beyond subpar. It’s an ordeal to say the least, even if it gives him a few interesting ideas about cinematography for the moiviive. It’s an idea he absently tosses out to Dirk where his brother is sprawled out across the blanket next to him. They haven’t gotten to unpacking the singular couch they’ve kept yet, nor have they gotten around to purchasing a new one.

Dave supposes that he should get along with doing that, but it’s not strictly required, really. With just the two of them, they can make do. At least the place came with mattresses, even though Dave plans on buying new ones. His is nightmarishly uncomfortable, lumpy and too-soft in some places, yet hard as a rock in others. Not to mention that he can feel the springs threatening to burst through like a knife at his back.

But he also knows that between unpacking the rest of their things and setting up various packages for phone, electric, water, and all that good shit, they’ll be fairly thinly stretched for the next couple of days. And, well, both he and Dirk have slept on far worse. It’ll only be for a few nights- they can manage it, and neither of them are really ones to complain. Even when being subjected to some truly horrendous movie that the kid had saved on his laptop for god knows what reason.

He can still hear the noise. That screech of metal that throbs in the pulp of his teeth and makes his hair stand on end. It’s muted, now, but only because Dirk has that ridiculous movie on. He doesn’t think he heard it when they were outside, which is- kind of strange, but it’s not like they were being particularly quiet, either. Probably the conversation and their own background music drowned that shit out, but right now it’s on full force. He doesn’t really pause to consider why someone would be doing construction, or whatever it is, late in the evening and edging towards the night.

Instead, he just asks Dirk to turn the volume up, which he does, puzzled. He’s a good kid, really. Dave takes a chance and ruffles his hair, only offering up a smirk at the scowl and grumble he gets in response.

The volume change doesn’t help that much, but Dirk shifts a little closer to him on the blanket, a warm weight against his side. That’s enough, for now. Especially when the kid falls asleep and ends up snoring softly against his chest. Dave doesn’t bother waking him up; Dirk doesn’t get enough sleep as it is, and at this point, the floor is far more comfortable than either of their beds, he’s sure. They’d probably sleep better down here. And, that’s meant to be good for posture, right? Or something like that, Cosmo would never lie to him.

He just runs his fingers through his brother’s hair in the huge and empty house, and blocks out the sounds that send chills up his spine and only add to the tension in his shoulders. There’s still a smear of orange paint, just behind his ear, though his hair is meticulously clean. Carefully, gently, Dave manages to rub it out.

He shuts the laptop, too, leaving it right on the floor next to them because he frankly can’t be bothered to move, and adjusts the folded-up blanket they’ve been using as a makeshift cushion underneath his head. He keeps his arm around Dave, and sometime between staring up at the ceiling that seems so cavernous and the slow filtering in of the dawn light, he falls asleep.

He doesn’t dream.

\--  
**6**

Dirk isn’t sure when he starts having those nightmares; even from what he thinks is the first, there’s this sense of familiarity. Of having been there before. Of knowing what’s going to happen next, and why, but never quite how to get away from it. It’s that feeling of uselessness, helplessness, which gets to him more than anything else.

They go something like this:

He hovers above a dark planet, visible only against the backdrop of the starry void as an absence of those twinkling lights, and accents of blinding green slashing through the black crust of soil. Ancient towers rise above it as tribute to dead gods, intricately carved and all containing warnings he cannot read. (Once, maybe, he lingered by them, just on the edge of understanding).

The planet again, except he’s on the ground. The soil is dark and barren, rocky. Nothing has grown here, and he doesn’t believe that anything ever will. The air is difficult to breathe; it’s heavy and sears the inside of his lungs as if he’s sucking down acid rather than oxygen. There’s something wrong, he can feel it in his bones. Something that should be happening, isn’t; the stagnation sits heavy on his chest. He’s drawn to a tomb, huge and intricately carved and gilt-golden, except it glows a sickly green in this light. From within, a huge rustling of scales, a rumbling hiss that echoes and growls, and an unholy light. He can’t move.

**o hero why have you come**

It’s in his head, he can hear it in his head but it’s just a dream. He knows that this is a dream. There’s a sword in his hands.

**i cannot help you**

Darkness swallows him as he steps inwards, but there is nothing but that scourge of radiance. It hurts to look at the creature in the caverns.

**i cannot save you**

Save him. There is nothing wrong- why would he need to be saved? The creature can’t save Dirk from itself. And this is a dream. It’s still a dream. He knows this, even if he grows less and less sure, especially when the coils start to move as if of a great snake, except they’re not that same gold that everything here is, they’re dark black and oil slick and the stuff of nightmares made solid, made corporeal.

The light begins to dim, and the thunderous shifting of those scales seems to diminish with it. Don’t go, Dirk wants to tell it, but he finds that he cannot speak, cannot even breathe. Tentacles are slithering in, now, those tendrils of the abyss, and they’re coiling around his feet, his knees, up to his torso and neck. Sliding into his mouth, perverse. He gags around it, the way it tastes of blood and rot and milk soured, reeking of open graves and decomposing roadkill in the Texas sun.

**there is nothing i can do**

This is the furthest it ever goes, this is when he wakes up in a cold sweat with his heart pounding and his throat feeling hoarse and raw, and his face pressed into a pillow damp with his sweat and smelling just like that thing from the dream. But that’s just his imagination, of course, a lingering terror that slowly relinquishes its clawed grip over his heart as he slides fully into wakefulness.

He thinks (hopes) that the pain in his throat is because of screaming- even though he knows that he wasn’t screaming in the nightmare. Instead, his throat had locked up, his voice stolen away and shut in as his breathing slowed viciously.

Besides. If he had been screaming, Dave would have come. Surely, Dave would have heard it and come to check up on him.

(It doesn’t matter, anyway. When he speaks, his voice is fine, if a little strained. His brother has only ever asked if he was coming down with a cold.)

He never manages to fall back asleep, afterwards, but he doesn’t leave the room, either. Dirk sits curled up on the bed with its bruising springs, and waits for the dawn to come. It seems to take longer for that pale sunlight to lighten the room with each day that passes.

\--

Dave starts wandering the halls at night, his finger trailing against the smooth walls until the cool dry surface gives way to something warm and slick and wet, pulsing under his hand, like the heart of a giant beast. He nearly recoils, but they seem to glow, briefly, backlit by a warm, comforting flare of pale red light. Like a flashlight shone through a hand.

The first time he feels it, it’s during the first week, and he’s not entirely certain that he’s awake. He can’t remember falling asleep, really, but that’s how it is, sometimes. He’ll be at his desk, or laying on the couch with his laptop a brand against his stomach, and before he knows it, his eyes have closed and he’s dreaming. It’s incredibly realistic, for a dream; he can feel the residual stickiness of the wall, feel something flaking off as he touches it during that boundary between cold and alive. He flinches away, recoils automatically even if it’s a dream.

The steady th-thump drowns out the sound of screeching metal and the sight of dark shades and a towering figure that comes with it; there’s a comfort to the steady rhythm that marks the passing of time. Not quite the tick of a clock, but he can count the beats like a metronome. He can match his breathing to it, and find peace. It’s better than the noise he’s been trying so hard to ignore, the one that he can feel scraping at the inside of his skull as it gets progressively louder.

Instead, this is like that bullshit meditation guide that Lalonde sometimes tries to force onto him with a gently determined smile, except this wasn’t written by some New Age yuppie who’s forever high for suburban moms with four kids and a lazy husband and a burgeoning problem with hitting up those cocktails in the evenings after PTA meetings. This is real.

Well, it’s just a dream, probably, but the calmness that sweeps over him is real enough. He turns through corridors that lengthen dizzyingly before him, unfurling like a map for his own personal use. Dave has the strangest sense of walking further and further away from something, though he knows instinctively that this is still the house. That he hasn’t moved that far, at all. There’s no feeling of walking towards anything, just the journey itself, even if he stumbles over a few uneven floorboards, a curled-up corner of carpet.

Too bad he can’t float in this dream- that’d probably be the best way to avoid landing flat on his face. Sure, there’s no one else around in this dreamscape, but it’s no less embarrassing.

(He doesn’t see the eyes that seem to peer out of the shadows, nor the way they lengthen behind him to just brush over his own. Testing, almost, like a child dipping their toes in the water of a pool. Like taking a brief nibble of your food before deciding whether or not you like it, whether or not you want to eat.)

He shivers at the tickle of cold air against his back, but continues walking down the corridor. Dave is normally a vivid dreamer, despite the nightmares that plague him occasionally, and he rarely bothers to exert any sense of caution or trepidation- he knows he’s dreaming, after all, why else would Hella Jeff be wearing an orange shirt? Dave while awake would never even consider such blasphemy.

This dream is a little different from the others, though, given that there’s none of the usual garish colors and nonsensical numbers and words that are a constant installation in his slumbering mind. Nor are there any signs of that other world he sometimes dreams of, all towering purple spires and Gothic architecture, intricately carved and frightening.

Instead, he feels at home. At peace. The floorboards creak and groan but they're warm beneath his feet, and the cracks between them seem to glow like the cold light of a distant star. He walks through a hall of mirrors, like the kinds in a funhouse designed to terrorize little kids. The reflections are no less grotesque, now. Dave sees himself: Young and scrawny limbs clutching a broken sword as a shadow of a man looms above him, face like a mask; older now and just escaped, a deathly quiet toddler in his arms as he runs towards a shittier apartment he's arranged; older again and the toddler’s grown into a kid and Dave's tired down to the bone but trying harder; they're both grown and growing inwards and Dave can feel a chasm widening between them; Dave in a pressed suit and red tie and standing in front of a sea of people at the best moment of his life; Dave, slick and successful and still wanting more, and a solid presence at his side with unflinching, silent support.

Dave, older with his hair greying, staring down a man who he raised, a sword in his hand again. The child, cut down carelessly by someone else, that same shadow looming over his body. Dave, running his own broken blade straight through a broad chest clad in a white shirt with a popped collar.

(He can feel the press and give of flesh and bone as he drives it in to the hilt, feel the weak spurt of hot, wet blood around the wound as he twists it in. Hands scrabbling at his shoulders, too small. A face that changes from one lined and harsh to one with wide eyes and freckles and a grimace of horror and betrayal. This is where Dave always wakes up, shaking. Once, when he looks down at his hands, he swears that he can see them gleaming red and dripping blood onto the sheets.)

He never remembers them in the morning. He doesn’t realize that he’s been sleepwalking, but for a residual ache on the soles of his feet, a dusty smear on the blankets of the bed. It’s more comfortable now, and so he begins to linger in. Relishing the fact that he can. The noise seems quieter somehow, in here.  
\--  
**12**

The house is empty, today, given that Dave has gone out to do his usual routine of schmoozing- some meeting with his producers, and then with his publicist, Dirk thinks. No doubt the latter is to scold him for moving out into the middle of the boondocks, too far away for the paparazzi to get carefully staged photos.

It’s admittedly strange, given that Dirk has heard of them crawling over fences and lurking in places for hours at the barest of rumors that their target of choice might be there. Dave is very much a public figure, and Dirk- well, he isn’t entirely certain of how much his brother had concealed about their move, given that he’d had to wade through a swarm of them, skulking around like piranhas only to converge on their hapless prey, every time he’d left their old apartment.

(Dirk had always been able to slip out relatively unnoticed, though. Perhaps because he always wore a hat to conceal his hair, and his own shades. There wasn’t much of a resemblance between the famous Dave Strider and some scruffy teenager, after all. Especially not when both took pains to ensure that Dirk was never caught in the spotlight. Despite some near calls in the past.)

That being said, Dirk’s currently settled in the bathtub, a sleek, modern thing that is almost entirely what had really sold him on the move. It’s huge compared to the one at the old apartment, and almost sinfully luxurious. It has jets with their own pressure gauges, even. Dirk doesn’t stop to wonder why, exactly, a house that’s as old as this one appears on the outside would have this as the singular new thing in it. It’s all gleaming stainless steel faucets and a lovely white finish for the tub itself, which is deep and wide- perhaps even enough for two people. Dirk didn’t even know they made tubs that could fit two.

He has a bath bomb at hand, overpriced but something that he knows will fill the room with a scent advertised as vibrant and refreshing, and will leave him soft, soothed, and potentially rather glittery. None of this is a drawback.

(There’s something at the back of his mind, though, a little voice, a niggling thought, that tells him perhaps this isn’t the best idea. But that’s just his discomfort in a new environment, he’s sure, and what better way to overcome that than to associate said new environment with something positive? Or at least, that’s what Lalonde would say.)

The tub is filling slowly, but steadily, steam rising off the water and curling in the air. There’s a small window positioned just above the tub, and Dirk has already tiptoed up to crack it open and let some fresh air in. Despite the fact that there’s no one here, he’s already closed and locked the bathroom door.

Absently, he dips his fingers into the hot water, now just over six inches deep, and swirls them around. It’s almost searingly hot at first, and then again just at the ring where water meets air around his fingers, but it feels good. Bracing. He has a fluffy towel at hand, and his phone set up to stream a few episodes of anime- JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, maybe, though he wasn’t too sure where he’d left off on Stardust Crusaders, or if he even wanted to continue it.

The tap stutters a bit, when the tub is just over half full. But that’s enough to cover his legs if he sits down, Dirk’s sure. So he drapes the towel over the small rack just next to the tub, and steps in. A brief burn around his ankles, then throughout his legs as he sits down, but it fades into something looser, something buoyant, once he gets used to it. He can feel that ring of heat inching higher as the tub fills, and he lets out a quiet sigh.

This is nice, of course. He even drops the bomb in prematurely, just to watch it fizz and spit out swirls of color, galaxies in miniature forming in the water. Glitter swirls and catches the yellow bathroom light, looking like gold dust as it curls with the currents before settling against his skin, against the bottom of the tub. The water is no longer clear, and Dirk spends another minute just marvelling at how the color subtly changes whenever he moves his hand.

The tap stutters again, chokes, before spitting out more water. It’s nearly three quarters full; he’ll stop it soon. He slouches lower in the water, until his toes are just peeking above the surface, the bathroom air suddenly frigid at his feet in comparison to the water. He wiggles them a little, dips them back under.

The house feels empty, the rush of water into the bathtub and the swirls of heat it sends around his legs is suddenly too loud. Too artificial. Almost painfully transparent, as a way to compartmentalize being alone in a new place for the first time. Suddenly, the earlier urge to ask Dave to stay, to call in sick or something and stay here with him, doesn’t seem so ridiculous. He supposes it’s just because there’s a lot more space to feel lonely in, and that he’ll get used to it.

(He doesn’t really want to think about what he’s going to do, when Dave leaves for an extended period of time, like he has to. Interviews, filming, the busy life of a celebrity. A part of him is beyond reluctant to spend the night here alone, even if by that time he’s certain to have a comfortable bed, certain to have settled in properly. Just the thought of it makes his blood run cold, his heart pound and stomach twist.)

He shivers, and sinks further into the water. It laps lightly at his nose and mouth, the scent of- verbena, he distantly recalls from the packet- suffusing the air. It’s nice. He gives it another whiff; it’s changing, subtly, but isn’t that supposed to be part of the charm? The slow release mechanism as the fizzing core of the thing dissolves, sputtering out its final breaths?

He prods at the last remnant of it with a finger, and it melts away into a soft, shimmering pool. The water is still but for the staccato on-and-off roar of the faucet. He leans forward to turn it off, and then there’s just the soft plink of the last few drops hitting the surface.

Dirk tells himself that this is the relaxation he’d wanted. And it is. The silence seems soothing, rather than accusatory, angry. The quiet sounds of water sloshing around as he shifts in the tub are as weird as ever, but it’s just ambient noise. He dries his hand off on the very edge of his towel, absently noting the water that drips down onto the floor and stays there, a miniature swirling kaleidoscope, until it stills.

He grabs his phone right after, lifts it as needed so it’s not in danger of falling into the tub like everyone’s worst nightmare. The sound of the water dropping is magnified, as he waits for the video to load. Dirk spares a moment to squint at the faucet, then reach over and try to shut it off properly. The chrome knobs only budge a little. The water drips out faster, now, almost mockingly.

Dirk opts to ignore it entirely; if the tub gets close to overflowing (unlikely, given that it is still just one drop at a time and there’s still a good four inches left above the water, even with him still in it), he’ll just get out and unplug the drain.

Finally, the video loads. The drops get louder, somehow, sending small ripples throughout the entirety of the tub. Steadfastly, Dirk ignores it, turns up the volume on his phone. The video loads, and he’s happy to turn the entirety of his attention to it.

He doesn’t notice when the water starts to change color, the drops from the pipe turning pitch black and sticky, like oil. Tar. Ichorous. He doesn’t notice the change in smell at first, either, something shifting under the stinging citrus until its overpowered, until there’s nothing of fruit left and only the odor of a rotting corpse. Like that bird that had died, flown into a jagged, torn-away section of the railing on the Houston fire-escape that had never gotten fixed. Impaled itself with a screech that was drowned out by the city noise, and Dirk hadn’t noticed until he’d opened the window and gagged at the smell. He remembers finding it, the black feathers at its breast writhing white with a miniature sea of maggots, feathers falling off limp wings, and its remaining eye milky white. The other had been eaten out, was just a hole into the back of its skull.

He shudders, gags as the stench gets stronger and stronger and-

A roar as the faucet turns itself back on, floods the tub with water that’s first searing hot and icy cold as Dirk tries to get his body to cooperate to move because that’s not water, it’s dark red and oozing, it’s blood from an open wound and it’s flooding the tub, it’s everywhere and it’s covering him-

Dirk nearly drops his phone into the tub, into what’s no longer pleasantly scented and colorful water, but a thick, viscous slime that clings to his body in long, dark strings as he scrambles out of the bathtub, lands firmly on the floor and almost falls in his mad dash to the door.

His chest is heaving, and the only thing he can hear is the thud of his heartbeat in his veins. There’s only that, and then this disgusting sucking sound, slurping like a straw at the bottom of an empty cup as the tub drains that (blood) gunk away, and leaves nothing but the tell-tale dripping into six inches of clean water.

He uses the bathroom downstairs, instead. Waits nearly ten minutes and watches the water run clear. Scrubs himself clean until his skin is red and almost raw.  
\--  
Dave comes back into the house utterly exhausted.

It isn’t the worst day he’s ever had, not by a long shot, but he’d woken up in the morning with a pounding headache and a tongue like sandpaper and his entire body protesting even the thought of movement. Absently, he’d wondered if he’d caught something from Dirk- the kid’s had a sore throat for a while, hasn’t he? But they haven’t exactly had enough contact to qualify as a definite germ transfer. Breakfast (coffee and an apple and a bowl of cereal) had made it marginally better, and he’d felt a low, pleased hum in his chest at being able to eat breakfast in a kitchen that’s not all gleaming and impersonal stainless steel, minimalist to the point of exclusion.

It’s easier to ignore that noise, now. He only really registers it just before he falls asleep- but Dave’s lived in the center of LA for two years, now. Ain’t no street noise construction bullshit that he can’t get used to, no matter how it grates against his consciousness and memory like nails on a chalkboard.

Getting out of the house was- hard. Dave has never so badly wanted to stay home before, but this is an important meeting. Budgeting and storyboarding and then discussing how best to sell his ass to the adoring public. He didn’t say that the thought of sitting down on a plane and flying out to do interview after interview was something that pulled against every fiber of his being. He’d managed to weasel his way out of any real commitments, of course, but he could feel every single second of that meeting slide by like molasses dripping from a spoon to a bowl. Slow and drawn out, and damn near unbearable. The only saving grace was that his flu symptoms had cleared up sometime on the drive there; window down and fresh air streaming in as he drove through winding streets lined with an archway of green trees.

(A part of him thought that it was strange, somehow, that he hadn’t seen anyone around. No morning joggers, nobody walking their dogs or even being walked by them. Not even the scant sounds of birdsong to break the silence. Not that the latter was important; he had the radio on anyway. And besides, it wasn’t more than five minutes after that he’d noticed someone coming up along the corner, just before the stop sign. He didn’t get a good look at their faces, of course, but they were walking a dog. A white dog, right? The incident fades from memory almost immediately after).

All the same, it’s a day filled with smog and noise and cameras flashing in his face like miniature suns, dizzying and blinding even as he summons up his blank-faced smirk in response and wades through them because he’s Dave Strider and that’s how he rolls. Never mind that he’d moved to get away from all of that, to push the scrutiny further back because they’d take and take even when he was determined not to give an inch. He doesn’t mind serving up a version of himself, an echo that gives nothing away easily tossed to the wolves like a bright red herring.

It’s a relief to pull into the driveway just as day turns to dusk and after losing a car that he thinks might have been stuffed full with paps in a trick that wouldn’t have been out of place in a regular circus, as opposed to one that’s strictly media. Dave amuses himself on the drive back (past that same person, and yes, the dog is white isn’t it? White and dog-shaped, he’s sure) by imagining himself as the magician, that master of sleight of hand and misdirection. Maybe he’ll wear that kind of outfit on his next event.

He could have gone to something tonight, he’s sure, just to establish to the rumor mill and gossipmongers that he is, in fact, still alive and kicking, and certainly not retired. But the thought of having a place like this to come home to, with Dirk ready and waiting although probably not with a hot dinner (it’s most likely instant noodles or something from the freezer, despite the fact that they went grocery shopping the other day), is not something he can resist. Especially not with how bone-fucking-exhausted he’s feeling.

The lit windows yellow like the eyes of an animal in the forest, and Dave finds that the light swaying on its chain above the front porch reminds him bizarrely of the lure of a deep-sea creature. Funny. He’d consider putting in a cameo of Bro and Jeff moving into an anglerfish if he wasn’t sure that Spongebob had probably done it already. Ah, well.

The house is welcomingly warm when he steps in, shrugging off his suit jacket and tossing it lazily onto the nearest box.

“Honey, I’m home,” Dave calls out, and it’s strange how his voice doesn’t echo at all, now. Strange how the place seems so much bigger at night.

There’s no answer for a moment, but Dave figures that’s fine. The kid’s probably up in his room and listening to music, even if he’s not trying to actively unpack his shit. And sure enough, there’s the quiet creaks and thuds of footsteps above his head- not something he finds eerie, given that he’s lived most of his life in apartment buildings, some of them very much subpar. Dirk emerges around the bend in the staircase, and Dave- immediately pinpoints that there’s something wrong, but there’s something like a twist in his head, a realization that how could anything be wrong, when things are perfectly fine, here?

It’s a moment of dizzying disorientation, and he’s so close to just brushing off that feeling, but then he sees the careful way that Dirk is walking, the set of his shoulders and tension in the lines of his jaw. He knows his brother well enough to see the signs written out clear as day, even if the kid doesn’t offer much of an explanation in return. It’s clear that something’s gotten him spooked; he looks about three shades paler.

“What happened to you?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. Dirk looks as shitty as he’d felt this morning, come to think of it. Maybe they really are both coming down with something.

“I was taking a bath,” Dirk says, slowly. Almost like he’s not sure what he’s allowed to say, like he’s testing out the words as they fall from his lips. It’s strange, given the way the kid plots out every detail of a conversation several hours in advance. Surreptitiously, Dave glances around. There’s not a thing out of place, and he knows that this is a nice enough neighborhood that no one would have broken in. Hell, he’s sure he’d have noticed something missing if that’s what’d happened. Or an unconscious body tied to a chair. His bro was weirdly fond of the Home Alone movies when he was younger, and has a frankly terrifying aptitude for both plans and Rupe Goldberg machines.

None of that assuages the twinge of guilt he feels for leaving Dirk alone here to begin with.

(He’s suddenly very thankful that he didn’t come home later- who knows what might have happened if he’d left the kid here alone at night?)

“Okay,” he prompts, tucking his hands into his pockets.

“I thought I saw something, in the tub.” Dirk’s frowning, now, and Dave raises an eyebrow.

“Like a spider or something? Didn’t know you were still scared of those things, kid, must’ve been a fuckin’ huge one. Could catch it and sell it on eBay or some shit, I bet there’s freaks out there who’d eat that right up. Some literally,” he adds, sniggering. But the moment of levity vanishes when he notices that Dirk isn’t laughing, that the frown is still firmly on the boy’s face.

“Not a spider. I- thought the water changed color, for a moment. From the faucet, I mean. Not in the tub itself. But. It-,” he breaks off, frustrated. He looks like he’s about to say something else, his lips parted, and there is certainly something wrong here. Dirk hasn’t fumbled with words like this for a good long time, not since he was younger and still trying to break out of the silence that he’d kept almost religiously. But nothing comes, and the frustration builds on his brother’s face until he just sighs. “Never mind. It’s nothing,” he continues, shaking his head slightly. The uncertainty seems to roll off his shoulders almost immediately, like he’s shedding a cloak. “It must have been rust in the pipes or something, so I guess just take care when you go sluice down. Let the water run first before stepping in. You know the drill.”

Dirk doesn’t sound wholly convinced, but he doesn’t offer anything else as an explanation. And given that Dave actually kind of fucking hates spiders, he’s actually kind of relieved that Dirk thinks it’s a pipe issue. It makes sense. Old house, not been in use for a little while.

(He ignores the tug on his psyche, the whisper that says they’ve been using the shower just fine for the past week and a half with no issue, and that why should there be a problem now? Obviously it’s the tub faucet itself being spotty. But he doesn’t think they’ll need to change it. It matches the rest of the bathroom perfectly, after all.)

“Aight,” he says with a nod. “I’ll clean off and when I’m done, you want to eat together?”

“Yeah, okay,” Dirk agrees, and Dave lets out a breath in relief. The kid’s already looking better, a little more relaxed. “There’s some veggies in the fridge, I’ll see about whipping up some stir fry.”

“Getting domestic, are we?” Dave calls out as his brother saunters off into the kitchen, his steps strangely careful.

“Gotta make use of the sweet digs you’ve gotten us,” comes the answer, and he huffs out a quiet laugh before heading for the stairs, taking them two at a time on his way up.

He does go to the shower, and even though he runs the water for nearly five full minutes before stepping in, the only thing he sees are the smallest of black specks in it. Probably really is just pipe rust.  
\--  
**15**

Dirk sleeps even worse that night. His skin crawls, slick with sweat, and even his nightmares are fragmented things. He can't hear that ancient voice, anymore, and he doesn't know if the silence his worse in its wake. His bed is still uncomfortable. Springs press against already sore skin, and the entire thing squeaks and the headboard rattles when he shifts. And sometimes when he doesn’t.

He can hear a scraping sound. Like claws against stone, or metal against metal. A sword sharpening, as the house groans and creaks around him. He's caught between waking and sleep and his body refuses to move from the bed, though perhaps that’s for the best.

He thinks he can see the floor shifting. Bulging up and down, like it's breathing. Dirk closes his eyes tight, his heart in his throat. The colours of the room have shifted to a monstrous red, the floors and walls tilting until they're closing around him and he's like a rat in a trap and he can feel it like that day on the roof and he's falling sliding down a tongue slippery wet and slick and stinking and past teeth that gleam jagged and sharp like shards of glass except at the roots they're black and rotted, and his fingers scrabble for purchase but all they find are fine shards of bone and a surface too slimy to grasp and-

Dirk forces himself to open his eyes.

The room is perfectly still, shaded eerie grey and flattened out in the dark of the night. His bed is dry, but uncomfortable still.

He tries to move his leg. To see if he can. It shifts accordingly under the blanket.

It...wasn't real. It's not real. Just like what happened with the tub wasn’t real.  
This is what he tells himself in the silence as he stares up at the ceiling. The shadows playing across it seem to smile mockingly as something shifts across the moon outside and casts a shadow that swallows up the entire room.

By the time he fishes out his phone and gets through ten levels of a shitty candy game, he can almost find himself believing it. But he doesn’t go back to sleep.  
\--  
There’s silence, now, and the absence of the constant harsh noises of metal scraping against metal, the distant clang of swords clashing and a blade shattering, is just as unnerving. Dave’s thoughts crowd in his head, too loud, but when he sits down to stare at his laptop, fifty pages of screenplay already written and waiting, that half-sentence dangling and daring him to finish, he can’t bring himself to even touch the keyboard.

The last time he’d tried to write was a week ago, and he doesn’t even remember it, only remembers falling asleep and waking up to sheer gibberish on the page. Wingdings, maybe, and completely fucking indecipherable, even after he’d called Dirk to see if the kid could manage to make it make sense with some form of backwards translation. He couldn’t, much to both their frustration, and Dave had been able to dredge up a sliver of fondness at the divot that appears between his brother’s eyebrows, the almost petulant frown tugging at the corners of his mouth when he can’t solve the problem and is told to give up.

Dave had stared for the pattern afterwards, time slipping away from him like sand in an hourglass, understanding flickering at the very edges of his consciousness. Like smoke, ephemeral and impossible to grasp, it hovered there until he’d shut his laptop in frustration after deleting page after page of gibberish.

He tries to type something, now, but his hands feel leaden, nausea churns in his stomach. He writes all of one word of his stupid inane bullshit before he feels physically sick, the noise spiking in his ears for just a single agonizing second, and he can’t bring himself to continue. He can try again later, probably. He’s Dave Strider, he can do whatever the fuck he wants, and the deadline isn’t for months, anyway. Dave shuts his laptop with a quiet click, spots dancing in his vision for a moment as he stares into the utter blackness of the room before his eyes adjust.

It’ll be fine, of course. This is just writer’s block. Lalonde’s had it. He has it sometimes. He’ll get over it, like he always does.

(He ignores the little niggling voice telling him that maybe this time he won’t, maybe this time isn’t like all the others.)  
\--  
**21**

Dirk's bed is increasingly uncomfortable. He wouldn't have thought that it was possible, given that the thing, despite its outwardly luxurious appearance, was worse than the shit-tier dorm beds university students got to throw their backs out on. It's worse than the futon in the Houston apartment was, and Dirk's got a pang of sympathy for Dave- he hopes his brother's bed is more comfortable than his own, at least. Though Dave had been complaining about it during that first week, he'd stopped entirely. Not that the guy looked any more rested. But it’s telling, the way they haven’t talked about new mattresses, just yet. The same way that they haven’t talked about finishing the painting on the rest of the house- there’s solid patch of the roof done in Dirk’s garish orange, and one square section in the front done that was everything Dave could reach without a ladder. Whenever Dirk brings it up, his brother seems not to hear, seems to not look past him, but through him.

Dirk stops bringing it up.

After all, Dave does look tired. It’s easy to ascribe his inattention to that, to long nights writing and then falling asleep in a bed that’s far from comfortable. Though he’s never complained, not after the first two nights.

Dirk suspects that he looks the same. He wakes up with bruises imprinted into his skin, waving patterns that match up almost precisely with the springs. And that's if he falls asleep at all. The nightmares have been getting worse, though he's loathe to admit it. The absence of that hissing voice and the blinding light that comes with it is almost profound. Lonely. Which is why he's tiptoeing down the stairs, even as the floorboards above his head creak ominously. The sound makes him startle, has him flinching at thin air before he can brush it off as nothing.

(He shudders, though, at the trace of phantom fingers at the nape of his neck and the barest graze of claws down his spine. At the feeling of being watched, even though he knows there's nothing and no one here, with Dave holed up in his room and the rest of the house vast and empty.)

He knows precisely which box to open, and he's as silent as he can be as he pulls off the two on top of it and sets them down on the side. For a moment, it sounds like something is scratching against the inside of the cardboard- and for all he knows, it might be. Dave's near-illegible scrawl on the side says ‘Ninja shit, ass’, or at least that’s what he thinks. The ink is warped and faded.

The rasping tear as a small knife cuts through tape blares loudly through the room. Dirk glances back at at the staircase, which is conspicuously empty. Absurdly, he feels guilty, almost as if he's somehow betraying Dave by doing this. By unpacking things which are by all rights his to unpack, even if it's just a single item.

(Dirk doesn't know if he has it in him to try and eke out a place for himself here. Not like Dave has.)

He lets out a slow breath once he finally draws it from the recesses of the box. Books and one other plush (an old crow toy, tattered but not falling apart) see the light of the house for the first time and seem to recoil, shrink back in their comfortable spaces. But Dirk only has eyes for the puppet he lifts out of the box, all long arms and legs and a faded T-shirt emblazoned with ‘CAL’. The familiar glassy-eyed stare and the gleam of a gold tooth in a mouth easily manipulated are a relief to look at. He slings Cal over his shoulder and it feels like something has settled in and clicked into place, a weight slipped off his shoulders.

(Dirk doesn't see how the shadows seem to hiss and curl as if in revulsion, in the nooks and crannies they hide. He only registers a loud thud from the basement, a wet, sticking sound. Like a piece of meat dropped onto a chopping board, still warm and oozing blood. He's not close enough to hear the low gutturals of a language that should never be heard, even as it sends a chill down his spine, tugs at his psyche. And he's certainly not close enough to see the way his brother's head jolts to the side, the way a vague frown tugs at his lips and how he cocks his head as if to hear better, like that would explain the sudden feeling of cold dread that seeps into his stomach and settles heavily there.)

He can breathe easier, now.  
\--

**28**

  
“Bro,” comes a voice from the hallway, soft and insistent. Dave blinks a few times, shaking his head to dispel the images that linger behind his eyelids like they’ve been seared in. He tamps down on a surge of annoyance at the disturbance of the quiet- something that he’s grown to appreciate. Much better than the fuckin’ construction that was going on the first couple of weeks they’d moved in, after all. In the gaps of quiet, he can almost make out something, a faint static that he’s sure actually means something. He finds himself listening to it more intently, these days, head cocked and staring into the cavernous darkness of the shadows as he tries to make out what it says.

“Yeah?” he asks, his voice husky and a little hoarse with disuse. He can’t see Dirk, but he can feel the kid tilt his head in surprise, feel the slight downturn of his lips and furrowing of his brow. He’s worried, but Dirk’s always worried too much. Dave is used to it by now.

“You’ve been smoking again. A lot.” Ah, there it is.

Dave looks around the room, and smoke hangs heavy in the air, the burnt out butts of cigarettes he doesn’t actually remember smoking laying scattered on the coffee table in front of him. The TV is on, too, he realizes, with too-bright colors and too-sharp pictures and actors with too-white teeth living too-perfect lives. He hadn’t noticed until now.

“Writer’s block,” is what he offers in explanation, reaching out to pat a laptop that should be on the floor next to him, but isn’t. He frowns vaguely at the thin air, dragging his gaze around the room.

“Uh huh. I’m going to the grocery, buy some food. You want to come with me?”

Finally, Dave turns to look at the kid, and- there’s something behind him, something moving in the shadows and he sits bolt upright and opens his mouth to tell Dirk to move, now, please, but. It’s gone, and the kid’s staring at him with a mildly concerned expression. Fuck. He shakes his head slightly, like he can shake off that- whatever he saw. A trick of the light, maybe, from seeing the TV just now. He could go, but the thought is strangely repellent. He’s comfortable here, after all, the couch perfectly molded to his body. But he sighs; Dirk still looks concerned, and so Dave straightens up, his back cracking audibly.

“Yeah, alright. You going to cook tonight, or?” he asks as he stands up. A flash of dizziness twirls his head, makes him sway. “Head rush, I’ve been there for a while,” Dave explains, before Dirk can come over and try to steady him. He’s not going to collapse. He ignores Dirk’s sceptical look as he shuffles out of the room and into the hall, making a beeline for the door.

“Door’s the other way.” Or not.

“Sorry. Guess I’m out of it today,” he mumbles, turning right back around. It feels profoundly strange to be walking in the opposite direction- he knows the other route like the back of his head, for it’s the one he’s been dreaming of since the first night. He can hear Dirk’s footsteps thudding quietly against the floors as his brother follows him out. Kid’s usually quieter than a cat.

The door sticks when he tries to open it, feet shoved haphazardly into shoes that feel wrong enough on his feet to make his skin crawl. It takes him effort and a good shove to get it open, and the sunlight outside is dazzlingly bright. Bright enough to hurt his eyes, even shaded. It feels like its searing his skin, and for a wild moment, he swears that he can smell his flesh cooking.

He stands in the threshold, reluctant, but Dirk none-too-gently shoves him onto the front porch. His brother seems far happier to be in the sunlight, to be outside; he inhales deeply, and there seems to be a tension that seeps out of his body as he starts down the front steps and towards the car. By contrast, Dave feels exhausted, his throat dry as he follows. He can feel the sick thudding of his heart in his chest with every step, and a nausea that builds. Maybe he actually is coming down with something. He hands Dirk the keys to the car, wordlessly, and slumps into the passenger seat.

“Are you sure you want to go?” Dirk asks, the hand holding the keys hesitating above the ignition. Dave manages a weak nod in response.

“Yeah, I probably should. ‘Sides, I’m definitely going to need some medication. And liquor, if that doesn’t work. Neither of which you can buy on your own.”

“I can buy meds,” Dirk says, sounding a little affronted.

“Yeah, but you don’t know which one’s which and I have a delicate system.” Dave huffs as he curls in onto himself. He can feel a cold sweat breaking out on his skin, leaving it clammy. Moisture beads down his forehead and temples, makes his hands slippery when they fumble with his seatbelt.

“That was one time, and you never told me the cherry flavour was the one that made your throw up,” the kid huffs right back. Dave ignores the second, more concerned glance, as he turns the key in the ignition, starts the car with a satisfyingly low rumble. Except this time, it sends a shudder of nausea, of wrongness, through his bones, rather than the barely-contained pleasure of the engine purring underneath the hood.

Dirk doesn’t offer to take him back inside, simply turns his head to watch behind the car as he pulls out of their driveway. Dave doesn’t want to admit to the savage fury that rises in his gut, then, nor to the way his hands shake and he imagines them wrapped around his brother’s throat. Can’t he see just how shitty Dave is feeling? Uncaring little bastard, ungrateful little shit.

But it passes, the wave of that strange emotion receding almost immediately after it comes, and leaving in its wake an ebb of guilt. He really must be sleep-deprived or sick, if he’s thinking that about Dirk. His kid brother- his kid, by all means. The drive is silent and smooth, even after the house disappears in the rear-view mirror. By the time they actually get to the store (Walgreen’s), Dave’s feeling better, but for the ache of something missing that thrums in the pulp of his teeth.

When they return, dinner is a silent affair. Dave downs the required meds, even if he no longer feels like he needs them. Dirk watches him quietly until he leaves the table, food half-eaten because it feels wrong in his mouth, wrong in a way he can’t explain.

He sleeps that night, but when he wakes up, there’s that same dried blood on his hands, and he knows that they aren’t dreams anymore. When he throws up, fingers leaving rusty smears on the perfect porcelain white of the toilet bowl, he can swear he sees specks of black in the mess within.

He washes it all down the drain, watches it pale and fade to nothing but clear water. He scrubs his hands clean, too, meticulous and using far too much soap, even when his fingers shake and nearly end up knocking it over by the pump. He’s suddenly profoundly aware of the scrape of the calluses on his hands against his skin, and how it seems to be taking too long for them to be clean.

By the time it’s off and he’s left the bathroom, though, he’s forgotten all about it. He finds himself humming a jaunty tune, even as the skin on the back of his hands crawls.

\--  
**30**

Dirk plans on telling Rose about what’s going on, he does. But the messages don’t send, the calls drop to static, and the words stick in his throat, seedy and cloying like a fungus that has taken root there. Its poison seeps through his veins and numbs his tongue, and he finds himself trying to broach the topic less and less. He knows what it feels like to be unable to speak about something as a consequence of his own mind and body working against him for it, but this is different. This is a hand clapped over his throat, nails digging bloody furrows into the side of his cheek as a voice whispers for him to ‘Shhhh’, its breath hot and fetid against his ear.

This, more than anything else, is what scares him. This loss of control. It’s worse than the constant sensation of being watched, the cuts that have appeared in his fingers and arms, the bruises on his thighs that aren’t from bumping into anything because he knows they weren’t there when he went to sleep.

Something’s wrong. He doesn’t know what, and he doesn’t know why or how- by all means, he should be settled down, adjusted to the new environment. Enjoying how they have a space that’s entirely theirs, even if it feels too big for just the two of them to fill yet still feels like the walls are closing in on him. Like this place will be his tomb, more than anything else.

God, that’s morbid. But he still can’t shake the feeling, and it weighs on him more than he’d like to admit. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t try to broach the topic with Dave, surely that’s safe enough, but it feels like the words just wither and die on his tongue if he so much as thinks about it. This, he knows, isn’t due to anything other than himself.

(It’s the fear that Dave won’t listen that stops him, something that has never even given him pause before. Not when it comes to his brother.)

Dirk doesn’t believe in ghosts, is the thing. He doesn’t buy into any supernatural crap, nor does he think that this place is haunted. Dave would have said something about whatever ghost rumors there may or may not have been, and Dirk’s fairly sure he’d know if they were living in a murder house. He’s not sure how much of a dissuasion that would have been for either of them, at the beginning, but. It doesn’t matter.

(He does spend time considering the other alternative, though. That he’s just completely fuckin’ lost his mind and is imagining everything. But he doesn’t think he’s imagining the way Dave seems to get worse. More absent-minded. It takes longer for him to look up at the sound of Dirk’s voice, now. Dirk doesn’t think his brother has left the house since that last outing to Walgreen’s, when he was sick the entire time; Dirk’s been the one doing all the grocery shopping. Even when it seems like leaving is getting harder and harder. When he’s out, he almost forgets about everything that’s happening.)

He starts sleeping with Cal again, even though he hasn’t needed to since he was six and convinced that there was something in his closet, something scratching against the too-thin door that would creak and get stuck shut or open, something hungry that dwelled in the dark. He knows better than to believe in that kind of thing now, but he’d always thought that Cal would protect him. And, it works. The nightmares are muted, dull, rather than their full lurid display of color and sensation and the weight of something bearing down on him like a guillotine’s blade hanging over his neck. He wants to ascribe it to simple association with a childhood memory.

Whatever it is, he’s grateful.

He starts carrying Cal around with him more often. On the days when the house feels magnified, somehow, too big and too silent, with Dave holed up in his room writing (not writing, a voice whispers, smug and sibilant; he’s staring at a blank screen and chain-smoking and wishing he was back in his apartment which he had to himself, when he had all that space to himself), Dirk finds himself straining his ears to hear something, anything, in the quiet. Anything other than the soft rasps of his own breathing, the thud of his heartbeat, the shuffling of his own feet against the floor as he walks, cautious. And the omnipresent noises of the house moving around him in a non-existent breeze.

Sometimes, he even hears it, just barely on the edge of his perception. A slow, rhythmic thudding. Too far apart to be footsteps, even when the floorboards creak just a few feet behind him, in the shadows of a corner he’s just turned. Too regular to be Dave dropping something upstairs, or a bird landing on the roof- he’s never seen one, in this house. Or even near it. Only the small smudge of what he thought might be a crow at the time, cutting across the sky in the distance.

He keeps to the bare floorboards, and always walks in the emptiest parts of the room. Dirk has fallen too many times since moving here. Enough so that Dave’s asked him if he suddenly replaced his right foot with another left. Dirk isn’t too sure that it’s his fault; every time he’s managed to stumble over a flat surface, a bit of carpet tilted innocuously up. He’s never tripped on the blankets they use for a couch, though, the ones they brought from Dave’s old apartment, so he starts spending more and more time in the living room. He even constructs a mock chair from the boxes.

It isn’t difficult, given that they’ve not finished unpacking yet. Or, Dirk doesn’t actually remember the unpacking, but Dave has clearly been getting on with it at night. The boxes labelled with his brother’s name have slowly been dwindling down, though their contents don’t quite seem to appear. Dirk thinks that they’ve been moved to his room, but he hasn’t been there to check. And Dave hasn’t offered to show off those renovations.

Dirk’s own boxes remain entirely untouched, and he lets them gather dust. Some part of him tells him that unpacking would be a mistake.

(That same part of him sometimes thinks that moving out to California was a mistake. That he should have stayed in Texas, and Dave should have stayed in LA, and maybe things would be better.)

He streams a few movies, has some snacks, tries to compose a email to Rose. Email. Not quite as desperate as writing out a letter and mailing it, though he thinks that particular course of action may be met with more success- when he types out the message, gets his unease down in words that feel entirely inadequate and hits send, the sent message comes back with those glitched out. Unreadable. Even though he’s sitting in a scant patch of sunlight that slants through the blinds, the warmth doesn’t reach him, and a chill crawls down his spine.

He clutches Cal closer to his chest, even though the comfort has started feeling more hollow, than anything else. He’ll go out tomorrow, he has to get groceries. And maybe he’ll write and mail a letter, while he’s gone.

(He knows, intuitively, that trying to write it in the house wouldn’t work. Just like he knows that even thinking about it too long is inviting trouble. Maybe he’ll try and talk to Dave tonight, try and get him to watch a movie. To leave his room.)

The sunlight slants as evening begins to creep in and Dirk remains firmly in the center of the blankets. He wishes they had packed more, so that he could lay down properly and sprawl out. He wishes bringing down a pillow or two from his bed was a feasible idea.

\--  
**37/38**

Dave wakes to the door creaking open like a warning alarm, the groan of wood whispering intruder, intruder, intruder. He sits bolt upright, fingers groping for a weapon that isn’t there, only to see a figure shrouded in darkness, silhouetted against the dim yellow light spilling in from the hallway. Spiked hair, pointed shades, the gangling arms of an infernal puppet looped around his neck. He’s here, he’s back, how is he-?

Dave scrambles backwards instantly, wishing he had his shades, fuck, where are his shades? There’s no expression on that face, even as he fumbles with the light, praying it’s just a mirage, some figment of his sleep-deprived mind, a trick of the light or a half-dream lurking in the darkness. His heart is pounding, and fear churns sour and sick in his gut, threatening to crawl its way out of his paralyzed throat, where’s the fucking light, why won’t it come on, shit, shit shit, he’s supposed to be dead-

(For just a second, he hates the sight in front of him with the gut-deep clench of fear he’d thought he’d forgotten.)

And then the light flicks on, and Dave sees a face younger than he expects, shades slightly askew, a frame slimmer and clad not in a shitty popped-collar polo, but a loose tank top with an ironic horse on it. Exhaustion written in every line of his body, in the slope of his shoulders and the tight grip of his fingers on that fucking puppet. Oh. Oh, no.

“...Sorry,” is the first thing Dirk says from his spot by the door, and his usual quiet voice, stilted monotone and perfect enunciation, is more vulnerable than anything else, slanting towards guilty as it sheds that mask of indifference in the dark of the night.

“Is there something-,” Dave tries to ask, forcing himself to calm down. His heartbeat slows, gradually, and he sucks in a deep breath. Guilt crawls up his body like a vine, twines around his neck and strangles his voice.

“No. No, I shouldn’t have come to bother you,” Dirk says immediately. Forceful and resolute, and there’s that guilty look on his face again, like when he was a kid and had lost one of his Pony Pals books, left it in school or something. But he’s gone almost immediately, turning and padding away, and his absence is like a bucket of ice water flung at Dave’s face as he sits there, paralyzed by the remnants of an old fear and the guilt of thinking that about his brother. His kid, even. Dirk doesn’t want to talk to him- no, Dirk feels like he can’t talk to him. It hurts, a little, in this part of him tucked away, the part that’s not still reeling from the sheer shock of seeing what he could have sworn was his Bro. The part that’s not concerned with survival, still. Dave sits in the harsh light of his lamp, grappling with himself as Dirk slips further away, his footsteps inaudible and lost in the maze of the house.

That heartbeat echoes in his ears, thudding loud and drowning out his thoughts. Dave doesn’t get up and go after him, and by the time it occurs to him to do so, a soft, grey light has started to steal into the room.

\--

Dawn blares through the slats in the blinds that cover the window, but Dirk hardly notices, even as dust motes swirl in the shafts of weak light. It’s cloudy, he thinks absently, from where he’s sitting in the living room. Even that feels like an intrusion, like an ordeal, these days.

It’s gone from the typical lumpy mattress, to straight up uncomfortable. And, last night, to painful. He’d compared it to laying on a bed of nails, in his head. And he’d told himself that it was just in his head, that he was just imagining things like he has been lately- because what else could be in his bed that would make wet warmth seep down his back, tear holes in his shirt?

Imagination or not, he didn’t bother trying to last the night out.

(He doesn’t want to think about what had happened in Dave’s room, doesn’t want to know who or what his brother had thought about when he’d seen him in the doorway. All it did was confirm that whatever’s going on- whatever the fuck he might be experiencing- he can’t tell Dave about it. And that’s just how it is.)

He’d ended up back on that little blanket in the living room, after practically fleeing down the stairs, his heart pounding as the house groaned and creaked around him. As phantom footsteps thundered down the hall, and incorporeal hands closed tight around his throat, just for a second. He’d dove onto the blanket, like that could save him, and he’s never felt like that much of a child, scared of the dark and thinking that a flimsy piece of cloth could protect him.

He cradled Cal tight in his arms, curled up with sore and aching, even as the throb of open wounds diminished, and he’d somehow managed to fall asleep.

And when he woke up, he wasn’t at all surprised to see the rust-red of dried blood clinging to the mattress, to feel the air stinging at his back. He thinks about going to get something to eat, but the thought of getting up, of going into the kitchen and facing whatever horrors he might find there, is too much.

Maybe he’ll go out today, or at least try to. The door seems so very far away, when he looks at it, the hallways distorting and seeming to stretch ever-backwards, the shadows on the wall writhing. He considers asking Dave for all of a millisecond, but decides against not to. It feels petty, shallow, not wanting to see him after last night. Like how he used to lapse into angry silence when he was younger and pissed off at his brother.

(But petty, Dirk has to admit, is better than being afraid of what he might see if he were to go upstairs and knock on that door. If the door were to open at all for him.)

He’ll stay here just a little longer, before he tries to go.

\--

**45**

The first time he sees Dirk dead, Dave has enough of himself left that he screams, the sound animal as it tears itself from his throat, raw with despair and loss and shock and oh God that's my kid that's my brother he can't be dead I just saw him is there someone in the house who did this how’d it happen-

Just saw him in the hallway, brushed past the kid but he’d flinched at the touch, hadn’t he? They both had. And- Dirk had scurried off, and Dave had let him go again and was that the last time he’d see his brother? With the memory of last night hanging over both their heads and Dirk strange and silent and Dave a coward in his own skin?

He doesn’t want to believe it.

But it can’t not be Dirk. Dave knows that face, the freckles splattered across his cheekbones and nose, down to his shoulders in supernovas and constellations, across his back and down his torso. He knows the hands, slim-fingered with too-large knuckles, calloused from working with tools and tinkering with things he wasn’t supposed to, things they can afford now that it’s too late, oh god, it’s too late. The quiet drip of blood is the only sound he can hear. The soft plink of it hitting the floor, soaking the carpet. Not even a whisper of a breath, his boy’s lips are tinged blue and his eyes wide and staring like a sun that won’t rise again. Something dies in Dave too; the corpse’s gaze is accusing and angry and afraid- what kind of parent can’t protect their own kid, what kind of brother is he? Dirk was here, and screaming and he’s flayed fucking open like an animal, pinned for display, and Dave was right here he didn’t hear a thing, he didn’t see, he could have stopped it could have said something, could have-

“Bro?”

He freezes.

“I heard you scream. Is there something wrong?”

Slowly, he turns, and- there’s Dirk. Dirk’s there, he’s alive. The breath rushes back into him and Dave nearly sobs in relief, practically flinging himself at his brother. He tucks the kid in close, buries his face in the gelled spikes of his hair and breathes in. Relief overwhelms him, his knees sag and he very nearly brings Dirk down with him, the kid giving a startled exclamation. He ignores how it feels like he’s atoning for the night before, offering up something that’s far too little and far too late.

“It’s fine, I just. Saw a spider, you know how fuckin’ gross those things are,” he mumbles by way of explanation, and Dirk hums in a way that he knows means the kid’s not convinced, but he can’t bring himself to explain it. It’s- sleep deprivation, or something. It has to be. Because when Dave glances over his shoulder, opens his eyes again, there’s nothing but the light filtering through the curtains, the room painted a buttery yellow in the afternoon, with dust-motes swirling in miniature whirlwinds, dancing in the shafts of light.

“Okay,” Dirk says finally, and rests a hand lightly on his back. Dave just nods, rests his chin on his little brother’s head. He can’t bring himself to let go, not quite yet.

It’s the first time, but it isn’t the last.  
\--  
**48**

Dirk floating in the tub, face down. Blue lips and water that’s nearly ice. Dave manages to hold his scream in, but his hands shake and his heart doesn’t stop pounding until he stumbles downstairs and sees the kid sat pretty on the blanket on the living room floor. Silently watching something on his computer. He doesn’t have the puppet with him, but Dave’s crumbling under a surge of relief so strong it weakens his knees.

He doesn’t talk to him, but just watches as time slips between his fingers. Just another set of eyes, staring from the shadows.

He ignores the niggling thought that maybe this Dirk isn’t the real one, after all.

-  
**51**

Dirk only sees his brother dead once. It happens in the middle of the day, when he’s managed to drag himself out of bed and down the stairs. He knows that he can’t sleep on that mattress, in that room, any longer. Not when the pillows stink of dust and rot in a cloud that rises and threatens to smother him, make him just another moldering corpse in a tomb that no one will ever find. Not when the scratch marks along his back and arms have just gotten worse, and he feels like the bruises from the springs are seared permanently into his skin.

It feels wrong, to stay out in the open, so vulnerable on that single square of cloth, in the middle of the night. But it’s enough during the day, and- he has Cal with him. It’ll be fine. He’ll try it here, for just one night.

And then he sees it.

Dave, impaled through the chest on a twist of metal from the stairway banister. Dirk watches the life drain from his eyes and screams choke him as his brother’s fingers curl tight around his right. Hard enough to bruise. The grip is ice cold against his skin, clammy with sweat and bleeding that same black ichor from the tub, the one that coats the inside of his mouth and seeps into his dreams.

It starts to pull.

Dirk doesn’t scream. His lips have been glued shut, even as his breath quickens and he tries to yank his hand free from the corpse. It- it can’t take him anywhere, it’s stuck, but it’s pulling and his heart is fucking pounding out of his chest and he can hear that thudding again, hear the creak and groan of the house around him only it sounds more like the shifting of an animal ready to pounce on wounded prey.

The floors rise and fall with each beat. He can feel it resonate in his chest, in time with his own heart which traitorously slows to follow it. It pounds between his temples, in the pulp of his teeth, all the way down to his bones. It’s the only thing he can hear.

Other than the footsteps, drawing closer. He’s still trying to yank his hand free, and- the grip is loosening, there it is, those fingers slackening and Dirk almost sobs in sheer relief as he’s sent reeling backwards from the force of his own efforts.

Then Dave walks down the stairs, looking like a ghost. The body is gone when he looks back at it, but the bruises linger on his hands. He holds Cal tighter, even as his brother walks past him like he’s not even there. Like Dirk is the ghost. He can’t find the words to speak out.

The thudding fades, but he can still feel it echo in the hollow spaces in his chest.

-  
**52**

  
The tickle in the back of his throat gets worse. His lips sting and burn faintly, his room is faintly hazy with smoke. Dave doesn’t bother opening a window. He can feel a crack about hotboxing try to wriggle its way through sluggish thoughts and onto his tongue. He hasn’t left his room in- days. He doesn’t want to see whatever new thing his mind has concocted for him.

(Because it’s not real, of course, none of it is. He doesn’t know what’s happening. It doesn’t even occur to him to leave- that he can leave. If asked, he would have stared, confused. If he’d tried, he wouldn’t have made it more than five steps from the door.)

He barely notices the smear of black on the back of his hands when he stops coughing.

-  
**54**

Dirk stops trying to sleep on his bed. His brother haunts the house like a wraith, wandering through corridors and hallways and never stopping to look at Dirk. He doesn’t remember when either of them last ate- he knows he tried, earlier today. Opened the fridge to see Dave’s severed head staring blankly at him through a pair of cracked shades that distorted his own reflection. He’d thrown up, afterwards, barely made it to the sink in time. If he’d cared to look, he’d find black specks dotting it, nearly identical to the slime that had covered him in the tub, that day so long ago.

He stares at the door, even manages to walk towards it. But he can’t make himself put his hand on the doorknob. Hot tears roll down his cheeks, drip onto the floor and get soaked up greedily by the carpet. There’s a sizzling sound, and his body reacts before his mind does, yanking his hands away at the flash of pain.  
When he glances down at it, there’s the perfect imprint of the doorknob blistered onto his palm. It throbs dully, but he doesn’t bother going back to the kitchen. He keeps Cal close, instead.

\--  
**55**

Dave showers. He stands in the tub, lets something too slick to be water wash over him, soak into his skin. He coughs again, but the splatter of pitch just gets washed away with the rest. His head is spinning. He stepped over a corpse sprawled in the hallway on his way here, but he could hear the distant grating sound of the MLP theme song that reassures him that it’s not real.

Kid’s probably binging on that shitty pony show again, but Dave won’t bother him about it. Not now, anyway. His new script is coming along well, after all; he should get back to writing while the writing’s good. Before that block sets in again.

His footprints gleam sickly in the dim yellow light of the hallway lamp as he walks back to his room.  
\--  
**71**

He’s laying on something soft. Light, buoying him up like a cloud. So different from the rock-hard floor only cushioned by two thin blankets that long-since lost the smell of artificial apple detergent.

There’s a weight on his chest, an anchor, and he can practically hear his ribs groan in protest as he struggles for breath, his heart pounding and pressure mounting. He still can’t open his eyes, can’t see, what’s going on who’s there, there’s no hands around his throat but this thing on his chest, what is it what is it whatisit-

He can feel the throb of his pulse in his head, his lips open in a soundless scream and oh god there’s a crack like thunder and a searing sharp pain in his chest and that’s nothing nothing compared to the need that burns through him he can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t see in the darkness that’s like being in the mouth of a monster like he’s swallowed whole slick with blood and half-chewed.

He can’t, hecan’thecan’the-

Dirk manages to open his eyes, finally, in one last act of defiance, but there’s only the glassy white and blue and black staring back at him and oh, a half moment to relax, before they’re flashing like a cheap magic toy and soulless, hungry, mad and wanting, and he’s about to burst, his vision already fading and he still can’t move, his strings are cut, he’s

\--

Dave peers into Dirk’s room to find the kid lying prone on the bed, the damn puppet sitting on his chest like a clingy lover. His lips are tinged blue, his posture stiff and his face a rictus of terror, frozen in a last, silent scream. Dave sniffs the air, subtly, but he can’t smell anything other than dust and smoke.

He turns away with a sigh, shutting the door firmly behind him. He’ll have to look downstairs to find him; that one wasn’t even particularly convincing. No blood, after all, not even the drama of that time he’d walked in to find Dirk swaying from the chandelier. The kid’s probably in the kitchen getting breakfast or something. Dave can’t really fathom eating, right now. He lights up a smoke on the way, watching the tip glow cherry red as he walks hallways he now knows by heart. His footsteps echo the beat of that ancient heart, a sense of belonging finally settling over him.

(Deep, deep inside, a fragment of him pounds against his skull, half-driven mad by grief and horror.)

\--  
**72**

Two thousand, eight hundred miles away, a letter is delivered to a sprawling mansion nestled in the middle of the woods. It arrives over breakfast, which is a rather muted affair in that household, despite the mother’s best efforts to make it into a form of family bonding.

It is, after all, incredibly difficult to muster up the effort for such things when either one or both parties are hungover.

The address line is written by a shaky, but familiar hand, and the recipient feels a pang of unease as she notes it. She hasn’t heard from the author in quite some time, despite their relation. She opens it easily with a slim blade made just for that purpose, and removes the folded paper from within. The writing is the same, inside. Neater, in some places, and barely legible in others. But she can divine the meaning well enough, and it fills her with a bone-deep dread and a feeling that perhaps, it may be too late.

\--  
**75**

Dave doesn’t see the kid around later, but he doesn’t think too much on it. Surely he’s gone out, as he’s started doing- though Dave can’t imagine why. Why would anyone want to leave, after all, when this is home, when it has everything he could ever need or want?

He thinks his new script is coming along quite well, despite the setbacks from earlier. And with the kid out of the way during the days, he doesn’t bother cracking a window in his room when he smokes, doesn’t bother to restrain any of the thousand and one bad habits he has that shitty teenagers find annoying. It doesn’t occur to him to look back in the kid’s room, or even to check anywhere else for him. It isn’t as if he’s entirely helpless, after all.

He sits cross-legged in his bed, the only illumination that of the laptop’s too-harsh light. It hurts his eyes, really, but he’s long since discarded his shades, tossed the once-coveted aviators to skid off his nightstand and clatter to the floor. It’s not like he needs them, here. They’ve been to protect him, used as an armor more than anything else, but he’s home, now. He’s safe. He doesn’t need them, anymore.

He’s not sure whether or not there was ever a window in his room- surely, there must have been some source of natural light, but when he looks over, there’s only the brocade of the wallpaper. He’s not entirely sure why he ever thought it was ugly; the swirls are ornate, a faded gold against a bright red background, bold colors that capture the eye and a pattern that he could spend hours staring at and trying to puzzle out.

(He already has, unable to stop himself from following it. Just like the static that filled the silence and how it gave way to the whispers when he managed to listen hard enough, he’s seen things in it. Himself, standing on a stage and getting award after award, standing in front of thousands of adoring fans. A small part of him thinks that it feels hollow, thinks that something is missing from that dream, but of course nothing is. What else would a human like him want, if not fame and success and the adoration and attention of an entire nation? Of the world?)

It doesn’t matter. The sunlight hurts his eyes, anyway. It’s better to stay inside.

(a pity he couldn’t convince the kid to do that).

It’s quiet inside, after all, and all the better to listen and to write. There’s no echoing footsteps, anymore, no hideous grind of machinery like clockwork and a sense of rising heat and a maw splitting open to reveal a tongue black as the dirt. There’s no other voices to interrupt, no one else forever underfoot and in the way and dragging him outside when all he wants to do is get some work done.

It’s why he moved here, after all. To be away from all of the noise. To get some peace and quiet and time to himself so he could relax. And it worked.

Dave shifts, the chair uncomfortable beneath him- but then again, it isn’t the one he’s used to.

(He feels a vague pang of longing, like the toll of a bell as heard from a few blocks away, for what he once had. For a sleek apartment with a disgustingly uncomfortable couch, with a luxurious bedroom and indulgent shower, and a little shoebox guest room on the side. Not that he’d needed it, of course- he rarely had guests. He does wish he could have brought that chair, though he supposes he’ll just get used to the new one.)

He lets his head loll over the back of it, the room shifting upside down to a new perspective, and then back again to the old. The change happens faster than he can account for, but he doesn’t dwell on it. Just bends his neck further back, until the back of his head is right up against the wooden bars on the back of the chair. Until he can hear a loud crack that resounds like a gunshot through the room, despite the release of tension in his bones. His eyes burn, blur out of focus as the patterns on the walls shift. The vaguest suggestion of a shape, before they resolve into words. Or, one word, over and over and over.

Walk.

He doesn’t even need to think about it; he’s standing upright and leaving his room almost immediately. His feet will know where to take him, the house will know where he wants to go. Dave doesn’t dwell on it any more than he does the stink of rot that has slowly settled into the upper floors, any more than the cracks in his lips that bleed occasionally and drip warm blood down his chin. Just like he doesn’t dwell on the fact that the blood is darker than red, a good few shades closer to black. --  
The hallway curves impossibly on before him, the hardwood of the floor shifting to lay across the wall, the ugly wallpaper that he’d liked for what he’d called irony, once, muffling his footsteps as he walks.

Th-thump. Th-thump.

The surface beneath his feet bulges and groans, his bare feet slipping and sliding, though he doesn’t bother looking down at them. Why bother, when he knows they’re already coated in that same pitch-black ooze he’s been coughing up since the end of the second month, that sits congealing in the back of his throat and makes everything taste like ashes.

Th-thump. Th-thump.

Dave doesn’t remember the last time he slept, doesn’t remember the last time he dreamed of something that wasn’t that land of volcanos and clocks, nightmares with the metal noises that screeched and echoed in his head. A small part of him wonders if Dirk’s been having nightmares, too. Maybe that was what he’d been coming to talk to him about, all those weeks ago. Or was it yesterday? It can’t have been weeks. There’s that fleeting, niggling sensation again, the one that tells him that just maybe there’s something wrong. But there’s nothing wrong, of course. How could anything be wrong? And then, he trips.

Lands face-first in the thick ichor coating the floor, and it starts bubbling, starts seeping up around his head like tar. Only when it seals over his noise, starts forcing itself into his mouth and down his throat, does he start struggling. He can’t breathe, can’t see, and he gags on the taste- black and sour like soil from the grave, and as if conjured by the thought he feels the wriggling of maggots and worms trying to push in deeper. He doesn’t scream, he can’t with his mouth full, and he doesn’t want to die here, he can’t, he can’t die like this-

Dave yanks his head up, feels something pull in his neck, and he’s coughing next, that same oily slick spilling from his lips. It glows dark red in the light that hums in the walls, clumps of it stuck together in a congealed mess. Something bone-white gleams in it, and with a vague sense of surprise, Dave realizes that it’s a tooth. His tooth, to be precise.

He gags again, his tongue slicking in his jaw, checking for gaps and something missing where it shouldn’t be, but- there’s nothing. He stares down at the tooth, and then picks it up. A long string of the tar clings to it, gleaming wetly as he holds it up to the light. And then tosses it aside.

It doesn’t matter, he supposes. It’s not his, after all.

He gets up, and keeps walking.

\--  
**99**

He feels it, the minute Rose walks into the house, her presence a burning bright blight, a stain that makes him hiss and want to curl back into the shadows. The entire house groans and heaves, floors creaking and always, always, the flickers in the corners of his eyes. Swords clashing, breaking. Metal scraping, heat and clockwork searing his skin as the celestial pendulum swings in the void. It hates her, in that moment, he hates her.

Her heels click, full of purpose, the noise magnified until it’s nearly unbearable, the beat to a chant of wrongwrongwronggetoutgetOUT.

The wallpaper looks wrong in front of him. Worn thin in this section, hazy and grey rather than the vibrant red it should be. Bright like a burst of blood. There’s something warm against his lips, he dimly registers. The woman’s footsteps grow unbearably loud and then-  
Stop.

“Dave.” And that voice, too, crisp and clear, perfect enunciation and every single word thought out in advance, a tongue too sharp to be sheathed and a scathing comment at the ready just like Dirk. He hates it, too, the sudden dominance of her presence; Rose’s ability to command a room has never been the equal to his, though Dave has long suspected that it’s only because she rarely employs it. This, is something else entirely.

Light spears out from her silhouette, a hideous reversal of a shadow that burns, oily smoke rising in a haze from the floorboards. The house groans louder, shhh, don’t be afraid, she’s not going to hurt you, getheroutnownownow.

He turns to look at her, finally, and the widening of her eyes and curling of her black-tipped hands into fists is gratifying enough. Good. Is she afraid? She should be afraid. He knows what he looks like, he sees it reflected in the black of her pupils. Him, gaunt and pale and unshaven, a starving revenant with impossibly black eyes and lank hair and a cigarette burnt down to the butt in his lips, burnt and cracked and caked over with dried blood in several places.

“Dave,” she repeats, infuriatingly fucking patient as ever. “Have you seen ----?”

“I see lots of things,” is what he settles on, and for some reason, his voice sounds hoarse, rusty, and he can feel a wet warmth seep down around his mouth. It doesn’t taste like anything, really.

“----,” she says again, like the buzzing of carrion flies. Annoying, annoying, annoying witch of a woman. Seer, a part of him whispers, old and arcane, and he understands. That’s why you want her gone. “Where is he?”

“Where’s who?” Dave asks, tipping his head to the side. The motion is a little jerky, but all of them have been, of late. It’s easier not to move, when he feels too big for his own body, when his limbs are unfamiliar and weak and so different from the sprawling corridors and high-ceilinged rooms caked in dust.

“Your brother, Dave. When did you last see him?” She’s really fucking insistent on that, damn. A vague memory skitters in the back of his head, eyes opening like a sunrise, nimble fingers and a sharp tongue. Freckles. But it’s gone, soon, replaced by images of dead bodies, over and over- a boy, drowned in the tub, flesh bloated and lips blue; a headless corpse slumped over in the hallway, the stump of the neck still bleeding sluggishly; a sword through a chest that’s still lined with the barest protrusion of ribs; an emaciated body, curled up in the corner, grotesque and pale like an alien.

“I don’t have a brother,” they he answers, and allows a hint of bemusement slip into his tone. That sounds right. Human.

(Oh god, a part of him moans, curled up where it’s been consigned to. A husk of the man he once was, starved and silenced, and the only part of him that remembers. But it doesn’t have the strength to speak up, doesn’t dare try. There is nothing for him to fight for, anymore.)

“You don’t have a brother? Well, then, if you are not Dave Strider, then who is it that I have the dubious pleasure of speaking to?” Rose asks, all business and crisp lines and a slender, pale neck that would be so easy to snap. He can see his fingers wrapping around it, and squeezing. He can feel the desperate fluttering of her pulse beneath them, the stuttered, rasped breaths. See her eyes bulge out, her mouth open wide in a soundless scream.

No answer is forthcoming, and Dave feels small in his own mind, insignificant and diminished. But there’s no fear, there’s not enough of him left to be afraid, not even when his mouth opens too wide and words and thick black ichor spill out, “I have no name.”

Her shock is evident, and there it is, that brief undercurrent of terror flickering through the air. She is afraid. Good. She should be. He grins, mouth stretching wide. Wider than it should, exposing blackened teeth and tongue and blisters bursting on his lips. It notes the pain in the sort of absent way you do when absolutely fucking faded, distant, something happening to another person. Carefully, the body’s shoulders rotate, testing their limits. It swivels the head, rolls the eyes. Such a lovely color, they were, that gorgeous red. Better than the sun-bright and vital orange of the other one, the one that escaped its grasp. But now, they’re dark, too, pupils swallowing up iris and sclera alike until there’s nothing but hollow void and hunger, and hands remember to reach for shades, but the glasses lie on the bedroom floor with cracked lenses and a bent gold frame. No matter.

The woman stands before it, her own fingers curled around the edge of- something, hidden in the folds of her sleeves. It isn’t surprised. Witches like her come prepared, they always do. But it has devoured stronger beings than a woman in this age of watered down magic. It remembers days before time itself, when there was nothing but the blackness of the void and the deadlights that shine at its core, ravenous. It knows the words of the Emissary, calling it and its kin forth, bringing them to worlds ripe for the taking, for the feasting. It remembers watching those worlds fall, just as this body’s mind has fallen.

She is nothing, in comparison.

Behind her, that hideous light flares, and it hears a rustle like scales against stone, and a hiss that sends the ragged shreds of what one could call its soul shuddering. But it does not matter who or what she has invoked, this witch. This body it has inhabited is good enough, with a sharp mind, so bent towards creation, towards imagination. So easy to corrupt in the end, after it removed that one last obstacle.

(It hates that the boy had gotten away; it would have liked to suck the spirit from his flesh, the marrow from his bones, the hope from his eyes.)

Darkness coils around it, thick tendrils of the void writhing and curling in a defensive, bristling wall. It dares her to try. The barest echo of the man inside it begs her to win. Unfortunate, really. She doesn’t have a chance.

They never do.

\--

**Epilogue**

[From a newspaper: Director Dave Strider and his brother found dead in a condemned house, close family friend and author Rose Lalonde refuses to answer questions about why they were there and how she knew to look. No foul play suspected, though the funeral was attended by thousands of fans.]


End file.
